My enthusiasm for Obama has been curbed substantially over the past few months (campaign financing, FISA, etc.) but I’m still excited to support and vote for him in the general election. I just had my hopes too high.

In any case, my father recently made a contribution to the Obama campaign, and sent this letter along with it (after the jump.)

Dear Barack,

My life has been parallel to your father’s in the journey to learn in the US. I came to the US in 1968 from Vietnam with the goal to find a way to change my country. The ensuing upheaval in Vietnam in 1975 allowed me to stay in the US. I always admire the dynamic American culture and socio-political mechanism to help bring about the best in human potential.

I have lived through the Nixon, Reagan, and especially the Bush years, which challenged my belief to the core. As soon as people’s tax money is accumulated to any appreciable amounts, such as under Clinton years, they are squandered by the well-off in a hurry. The middle class is left with the biggest share of the burden to pay for the debts. If you need the proof, just cite the statistics that the number of economical cars made by GM, Ford, and Toyota are decreasing because of the recession while Roll Royce sales increased 60% last year.

As a Vietnamese American, I can see lies on the benefits of the surge in Iraq as clear as daylight. You will have problems, however, with explaining the truth. How can an increase of 20,000-40,000 troops change the course of a corrupted war when the US does not have the peoples’ support?

The fact is that the way we exert our presence in Iraq by the Bush administration inflames the area. We used the Shiites to suppress the Sunnis. The Sunnis found they are being cornered so they fight back with insurgency and bombing. We disbanded all infrastructure of Iraqi government while knowing quite well that we do not have the troops to fill the gap. We are creating a holocaust with no regards for children, women, the sick and the old.

Now we bargain under the table with Iran and Syria. We approach the Sunnis and the Saudi for helps. We should have done that overtly and acknowledge the practice as recommended by the bi-partisan committee three years ago. The most soothing factor is probably your promise to leave them within a certain period so that they can rebuild their society. That is the reason why the violence is ebbing down. They are providing a pretext for us to leave. If we plan to stay longer by force, violence will flare up again. Adding 40,000 troops or even more would not change the course. We need to salvage our long term friendship with the Iraqi through a peaceful process.

My wife and I managed to raise two boys in the US. With great sacrifice, we supported the older one, Eric, through Harvard undergraduate in Computer Science. The younger one, Ken, managed to get an MBA at Wharton this year.

Both of them are your ardent supporters. Eric may meet the limit in donation to your campaign. I had to persuade Ken to keep the donation down because he is heavily in debts. He actually took time off from his busy MBA program to campaign for you. Eric and Ken had wholeheartedly convinced their Mom to switch from Clinton to you in the primaries. Ken told me a moving experience when he was arranged by the campaign staff to meet you in rally in Philadelphia. He told me how you shook his hand, hold it there long enough to sink in the feeling, exchange contact of mutual appreciation, and move on. I have never seen Eric and Ken so personally invested in a political process like this. You have helped to foster a new movement when this country needs most.

I will pray in my own way for you and your family. In you, I trust the destiny of the future generations of the US and probably mankind.

Related Posts:

• Tom Hayden Revisits Vietnam (February, 2008)
• Alternate Lives; An Ending (October, 2007)
• Mudslinging (March, 2008)
• The Lobbying vs. the Lobbyist (April, 2008)
• Change Congress Launched (March, 2008)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 11:20 am and is filed under personal, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.